Category Archives: Online Gaming

If the media are extensions of our senses, the internet is wired directly to our genitals.

Every fetish, every desire, can be met vicariously, as voyeur or exhibitionist. People feel free to share their most degrading fantasies with total strangers. Silicon citizens flirt, fuck, woo, cheat, and cohabit in cyberspace. Love, lust, and emotions that don’t have names are fed in chat rooms, across IM space, in Facebook messages and Twitter kisses.

So, of course, in the world of online games there are relationships too, torrid and emotionally intense as meat space. Often, they are more visceral than chat room flirtation because the world around the partners is persistent.

So here’s something to mull. If you divorce your husband the troll, who gets to keep the castle? Sound insane? Trust me, I’ve seen virtual world “divorces” end with almost as much venom and bitterness as any real world divorce. The saving grace with the pixels? Killing the virtual offending troll doesn’t land you on death row. In fact, in the right game, a player can even enjoy killing an ex over and over and over again!

But peel away the layers of technology and high def graphics, online amour is ultimately all about time. “Time jealousy” is the greatest risk in online relationships, especially within shared worlds, and also in the weird interface between virtual and real space. Even if your boyfriend is tolerant of you having make-believe sex with muscular fantasy objects, he is likely to resent the loss of your company when he wants to watch a movie or share the sofa while he watches muscular fantasy objects beat each other up on a football field.

The variety of reactions from significant others to fantasy world cybersex is endless, fascinating, and diverse. Please don’t get me wrong. It can be serious business. There have been divorces over Second Life relationships and countless engagements have been broken over World of Warcraft (WoW) addiction. Support groups exist for men and women whose partners spend hours in various on line worlds including Everquest and WoW.

But there are other reactions as well. My partner Drake used to play with a female player whose spouse was not only okay with her having steamy encounters in games, but who encouraged her because the cybersex warmed her up for real world action. Cyber ménage foreplay, as it were. I’d like to see some marriage counselor wrap themselves around that one!

In online worlds, especially the complex, goal-driven games like WoW and Age of Conan, one of the most valuable resources for any player is a reliable playmate. Even if the idea of roleplaying sex is repugnant to a player, a dependable companion to help kill those tough dragons is essential. Some of the content in these games requires staggering commitments of time and whole groups become interdependent on the availability of players with particular skills, such as healing.

This is where things become interesting. As everyone knows, the faceless internet tends to erode social skills rather than to encourage them, but consideration and communication, the foundation blocks of social life, are absolutely essential if one is going to have a successful online fantasy life, with or without sex.

So, how does this consideration work? What kinds of agreements, spoken and unspoken, can exist between cyber playmates? That’s coming up next.

I’m betting that, not long after Bell rang Watson, someone made an improper advance over a telephone. Photography served prurient ends almost immediately after its invention, as did film. Moveable type made cheap erotica possible. The problem with Bell’s technology was that at the time, no one was recording it for future posterity.

But now… computers and the internet, oh my!

The unleashed libidos of millions of semi-anonymous horndogs and damsels have washed across the electronic world for over two decades now, redefining gender and sexuality, turning words into sex toys. The internet has allowed for websites like www.dosexvideo.com to spread X-rated content to all horny computer users all over the globe, and the rise of adult entertainment is showing no signs of slowing down.

On the internet, no one knows that you are not really a transsexual dwarf who is turned on by milkshakes and latex. Or, if you prefer, everyone knows and you have your own Yahoo group! Through the internet, you can access as many websites similar to hdpornvideo.xxx as you’d like to without even giving up any personal information.

As a writer fascinated by sexuality and fantasy in all their forms, I am especially interested in the way sexuality has emerged as an element in online games that are not deliberately sexual, and fascinated by the ways that game players manifest their sexuality and by the taboos that communities may impose on themselves. This is the first in a series of mini-essays on the phenomenon and my experiences with it.

First, let me be clear that I am not talking about virtual realms like Red Light Center, where sex is the whole point, but about games like World of Warcraft or Age of Conan (see previous entries on this blog), that are, at least theoretically, concerned with other types of fantasy entirely.

Since many of the people who read this blog probably are not familiar with these games, or at least with the role playing elements of them, this first column will be a simple introduction to concepts, beginning with some definitions.

MMORPG – Massive, Multiplayer, Online Role Playing Game. A game played on a computer with an internet connection that involves simultaneous, interactive play with (potentially) thousands of other players all over the world.

Playstyle – The way any individual player approaches the game. Playstyles are infinite in variety, but tend to break down into broad categories, often overlap, and are not necessarily exclusive for any particular player. Many players exhibit different playstyles, depending on the game design and their preference of the moment. Some common playstyles include:

PvP, a playstyle that favors combat with other players, a competitive, sometimes predatory approach to gaming.

PvE, a playstyle that favors the player interacting with the environment provided by the game’s designers – killing monsters, solving puzzles, earning rewards.

RP, a playstyle that favors role play. RP comes in many varieties and there are different degrees of role play. “Serious” RPers try always to stay “in character” and to react to other players and the environment as though they are a method actor within a spontaneous play, weighing actions and responses as their character would, not as a player of a game.

ERP, erotic role play, a subset of RP wherein players enact erotic encounters with other players. Players who participate in this playstyle are (probably) a minority among RPers.

The division between RPers and non-RPers can be sharp and usually comes down to the accusation that RPers are forgetting the game is “just a game”. There is some truth to this allegation. When one invests time, care, and emotion into the portrayal of a character, it is much like an actor “getting into the role” and perspective can be lost, which brings us to two more important concepts.

IC, in-character. Behavior that is ideally only related to the environment offered by the shared world (game). In the most obvious sense, it means that your necromantic wizard shouldn’t be talking about his college team’s big win while chatting with the elf ranger at the tavern.

OOC, out of character. Those real-life (RL in gaming speak) things that affect player behavior. In the world of serious RP, letting OOC considerations actively influence IC behavior is a no-no. This distinction can become very important when ERP takes place.

Why would anyone want to play a role in an online game? Well, the obvious answer is that it can be a great deal of fun. It is! I’ve done it for years and have loved it, though there are likely psychological, emotional, and – I will admit here in the company of friends – artistic motivations as well. I’ve heard online RP described as “group therapy for adults with arrested development issues,” by someone who did not approve of it. I consider it more a new and vastly more amazing facet of global community theater – complete with backstage intrigues! Anyone with an interest in sociology and group dynamic psychology really needs to take an in depth peek at online RP. You could probably write a thesis on the subject!

Why would anyone want to play an erotic role in an online game? We’ll talk about that in the next part of this essay, and go from there into some of the really fascinating aspects of role played sexuality.